"'Tis no woman, that," the old boatman said hoarsely. "'Tis the Banshee, and I would not have had this have happened for the whole blessed world. I with my mother so ill in bed with the rheumatism and a cold she got all through her with sitting out on the wet grass the night before last." "Are you sure?" Mrs Broderick whispered, clutching him tighter, whilst her teeth chattered. "Are you sure it isn't Mary, and they are not killing her?" "Sure," replied the boatman, "that's the way the Banshee always screams--'tis her, right enough, 'tis no human woman," and like the good Catholic that he was, he crossed himself, and, dipping the oars gently into the water, he began to pull slowly and quietly away. By and by the screaming ceased, and a moment later the three explorers came trooping on to the deck, showing no signs whatever of alarm, and when questioned as to whether they had heard anything, laughingly replied in the negative. "Only," O'Connell added facetiously, "the kiss Mike Power stole from Mary. That was all." But for O'Connell that was not all. When he arrived home he found that during his absence his mother had died suddenly, and, in all probability, at the very moment when Mrs Broderick and the boatman had heard the Banshee. CHAPTER X ALLEGED COUNTERPARTS OF THE BANSHEE No country besides Ireland possesses a Banshee, though some countries possess a family or national ghost somewhat resembling it. In Germany, for example, popular tradition is full of rumours of white ladies who haunt castles, woods, rivers, and mountains, where they may be seen combing their yellow hair, or playing on harps or spinning. They usually, as their name would suggest, wear white dresses, and not infrequently yellow or green shoes of a most dainty and artistic design. Sometimes they are sad, sometimes gay; sometimes they warn people of approaching death or disaster, and sometimes, by their beauty, they blind men to an impending peril, and thus lure them on to their death. When beautiful, they are often very beautiful, though nearly always of the same type--golden hair and long blue eyes; they are rarely dark, and their hair is never of that peculiar copper and golden hue that is so common among Banshees. When ugly, they are generally ugly indeed--either repulsive old crones, not unlike the witches in Grimm's Fairy Tales, or death-heads mockingly arrayed in the paraphernalia of the young; but their ugliness does not seem to embrace that ghastly satanic mockery, that diabolical malevolence that is inseparable from the malignant form of Banshee, and which inspires in the beholders such a peculiar and unparalleled horror.